Pink hotels on Syria’s hills

“EVERY time I return from Switzerland, I bring one back,” says Ali Laham, proudly pointing to the huge, ornate cow bells on a shelf next to the fondue dishes. Mr Laham, who trained in hotel management in the Alps, owns the Monte Rosa hotel and country club, a large pink tourist complex that has just been built on the foothills of the mountains west of Damascus. The rich families who have snapped up the chalet-style homes built around the hotel can enjoy the club's landscaped gardens and sports facilities, including Syria's first public indoor swimming pool. Next winter, they will be able to glide down the slopes of Syria's first ski centre.

All this is blazing a trail that others are following fast. An Anglo-Syrian group is creating a health complex in the Lebanese mountains, and a vast resort near the Mediterranean with hotels, apartments, villas, a themed amusement park, a shopping mall and, inevitably, a golf course.

Syria is already richly endowed. A tourist can barely move without stumbling over Greek temples, Roman theatres, crusader castles or ancient Arab souks. The country offers huge rewards for westerners seeking the glories of the Orient. But do westerners visit? They do not. Over three-quarters of the country's yearly 2.5m visitors are from other Arab nations. They tend to be less interested in Syria's ancient heritage than in food, shopping and keeping the family amused. “We need to change our image,” says Kasim Mikdad, the tourism minister.

His ministry is thinking big. By 2020 it wants the number of hotel beds increased from 35,000 to 175,000, allowing for 7m tourists a year. Licences for projects, it says, will now be granted in a fortnight; and tax breaks are readily on offer.

But, naturally enough, things do not always work out as smoothly as the plans. The people putting up a new four-star hotel in Damascus complain that it took six months to get the electricity supply connected and running, even though they had contacts at the highest levels. And most of the new cafés and restaurants that have opened in the spectacularly restored family palaces in Damascus's old city are operating without official licences, which means that they dare not display their menus to the public.

Middle Eastern peace might bring bands of monument-hunting, comfort-and-souvenir-seeking westerners. But since the auguries of peace are not propitious, the tourist ministry is looking local.